Despite the mounds of information we dig through before each major auto show to prepare our coverage, every so often a surprise debut drops out of the sky. Ker plop. Didn’t see this one coming. Which is what happened when Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn was driven onto the stage at the Tokyo Motor Show in an unusual concept car called the IDx Freeflow. The white-and-flax-colored two-door, three-box coupe had retro styling evocative of the original Datsun 510 and a top that seemed to float above the body. You could look around the entire Nissan stand and not find another vehicle remotely resembling this one. We were intrigued.

But we didn’t have long to relish in the wonder of the Freeflow, since a few minutes later, Ghosn upped the surprise ante when a curtain dropped from around another IDx, this one with a coveted badge: NISMO. Americans in the crowd in Tokyo recognized the car’s paint scheme immediately, the white lower body with a red roof, a pair of slanted slashes just aft of the front wheels, and competition numbers recalling Nissan’s ’70s Trans-Am team. No wonder Nissan’s Trans-Am champion team owner from 1971, BRE’s Peter Brock, was in the crowd.

Anyway, Nissan describes the Freeflow as capable of housing a 1.2–1.5-liter four-cylinder engine and a CVT to balance fuel economy and power. They nearly lost us at “CVT,” but then we were given the IDx NISMO’s specs, and we snapped back to attention. That’s because the NISMO is hypothetically powered by a turbocharged 1.6-liter four with a six-speed manual with Nissan’s rev-matching functionality. (Okay, so Nissan also said the NISMO could accept a “sporty CVT,” but we’re just glad a manual made the imaginary cut.) Although it isn’t explicitly stated, we assume the IDxs are rear-drive; the proportions of their bodies practically scream that this is the drive layout. The IDx Freeflow rides on sweet 18-inch, four-spoke rims that look a heck of a lot like classic Enkei rollers that were popular with Japanese-car tuners back in the ’70s and ’80s, while the NISMO gets more contemporary 19-inch deep offset jobs.

So how does all this come together outside of nostalgic color schemes, neat styling, and pie-in-the-sky powertrains? Nissan is looking to change the manner in which it creates cars. Wanting to tap into whichever generation-at-the-end-of-the-alphabet is projected to be future leaders and new-car buyers, Nissan began a back-and-forth dialogue with what they call “digital natives.” (Think folks with birth dates after 1990.) The key here is the dialogue, the give and take, and from what Nissan took in from these youngsters came the IDx. In case you were wondering, the ID is, of course, the acronym for identification, while the x is meant to stand for new ideas and dreams. We don’t really care what it means, though—we just want Nissan to begin selling this seemingly natural Subaru BRZ/Scion FR-S competitor immediately. We’ll take ours with rear-drive, a manual, a “510” badge, and BRE colors, please.